In the name of privacy

There is nothing quite as inconvenient as the right fact in the wrong place. The last few days have been raining leaks, be it the torrential disclosures on Wikileaks or the cloudburst called the Radia tapes. Both have caused huge upheavals, both have seen attempts to contain their spread, and in both cases there is no serious question mark against their authenticity. But by far the most interesting thing about both these cases is that there is a reversal of roles between the powerful and the powerless that is taking place.

Concerns about privacy usually centre around the asymmetry between institutional surveillance and personal freedom. The state is omnipresent and is increasingly privy to almost all aspects of an individual’s life. The reasons for this widespread presence are many with national security being the most compelling reason why the state must know more about its citizens. Likewise, corporations too are reaching into the personal lives of consumers, and know much more about who they are, what they buy and what they like and dislike. The people who normally complain about the violation of privacy are the ‘small people’ who lack the ability to stand up to the power of large monolithic institutions.

However, what we are seeing today, is large institutions acting as victims here. When the leaders of the developed world decry Wikileaks and label it a threat to democracy, as President Nicholas Sarkozy has done , or the ‘September 11 of world diplomacy’ as the Italian foreign minister has put it, it is clear that this phenomenon is one causes deep anxiety to established power structures. The co-ordinated attempts to shut Wikileaks up are visible for all to see. The reactions of governments across the board reek of a brand of doublespeak that we have come to expect from them.

While it is easy to characterise Wikileaks or the Radia recordings as heroic attempts to redress the power imbalance that exists between the powerful and the rest, the situation is not quite that simple. It is difficult to argue that all information is good information. Large scale and indiscriminate leaks can damage international relations, puts lives at risk and destroy hard won reputation on the basis of incomplete and slanted information. There are many instances where secrecy is vital for greater common good and equally, there is good reason to doubt the motives of those who selectively leak information. In the Radia tapes for instance, it is unclear as to who has leaked the conversations and why only some recordings have been made public. In the absence of knowing the context in which these conversations took place, it is possible that erroneous conclusions may be drawn. In a Twitter-dominated era where information spreads at the speed of liquid light, the damage is far-reaching and instantaneous.

The problem is that when power structures become monolithic, the attempts to counter them too end up being crude, inefficient and create their own set of undesirable consequences. Leaks become a form of guerrilla warfare, a pirate’s way of attacking that which cannot be faced frontally. Governments across the world have taken advantage of the alibi of national security to cover up a multitude of sins and in most countries official norms of secrecy border on paranoia, often of a ridiculous kind. The Radia tapes tell us of the cosy nexus that exists between politicians, industrialists, bureaucrats and journalists, and points to a world which cannot be breached by an outsider. The gap between what is professed and how things really work is a very significant one which only a few are aware of and exploit. The absence of any functioning mechanism that provides real scrutiny within the system creates a need for someone outside to provide a measure of transparency and accountability. Of course, this often takes the form of a very blunt instrument, that is far from perfect. Leaks try and correct one type of asymmetry and often end up creating another. What we are seeing is the crude balancing out of a power asymmetry by means of errant information used purposively.

In the case of the Radia tapes, the real problem lies not with their publication, but the fact that they exist at all. To use phone tapping as a method of investigation in a tax case seems to be an act of absurd overreaction. For so many journalists, politicians and industrialists to have their phone tapped without a rigorous process of oversight represents a gross violation of basic democratic principles. If the state did not use such easy short cuts that are fraught with consequences, this situation would not have been created. But once the tapes exist and are made available to the media, no matter how dubious the motives of those who are behind the leak, the media has no choice but to publish them, if it is convinced that the recordings are authentic and in the public interest. In this case, it is difficult to argue that no public interest has been served by the publication of these conversations. To be sure, not all conversations needed to be put in the public domain, but by and large, these have given us an important insight to how public policy is created and influenced by a select few. Also, in reality in today’s connected world it is very difficult to prevent information to escape into the public domain if someone is determined to put it out without using extremely repressive methods.

Leaks convert hard information into rapidly dissipating gas. This is a messy way to dismantle monolithic structures but unless there is genuine transparency and accountability in these institutions themselves, it is unlikely that the information warfare will end anytime soon. Of course, knowledge without the ability to act on it is just a twisted form of entertainment. Knowing that everyone is corruptible may not lead to change, only cynicism.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

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Author

Santosh Desai is a leading ad professional. He says he has strayed into writing entirely by accident, and for this he is "grateful". "City City Bang Bang" looks at contemporary Indian society from an everyday vantage point. It covers issues big and small, tends where possible to avoid judgmental positions, and tries instead to understand what makes things the way they are. The desire to look at things with innocent doubt helps in the emergence of fresh perspectives and hopefully, of clarity of a new kind.

Santosh Desai is a leading ad professional. He says he has strayed into writing entirely by accident, and for this he is "grateful". "City City Bang Bang" l. . .